Civil Society Organizations against Free Trade Agreements in North America

Abstract

The analysis of civil society mobilization against free trade agreements (FTAs) in North America raises a number of empirical and theoretical concerns for two basic reasons. First, because the convergence of nationally based coalitions to oppose the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) failed dismally on both occasions, a result which is not easy to reconcile with the prevailing optimistic view about the relevance of social mobilization. And secondly, because the emergence of armed struggle in Mexico, led by the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberation Nacional (EZLN — Zapatista Army of National Liberation),² the day the agreement came into force, 1 January 1994, deeply affected the relevance and legitimacy of any further reformist opposition to NAFTA. In turn, this could explain the swiftness with which North American coalitions against NAFTA shifted their mobilizing capacity to embark on an anti-Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) campaign, and the consequent disinterest toward any further mobilization against NAFTA.

This article is a substantially revised version of a paper published initially in: D. Brunelle and C. Deblock (eds) (2004) L’ALENA: Le Libre-Échange en Défaut (Montréal: Éditions Fides). The authors wish to thank the editors and reviewers for their comments and suggestions in preparing the present version.